Virtual+Prototype+of+the+Dickinson+Mock+Courtroom

=Virtual Prototype of the Dickinson Mock Courtroom= toc Research Case Study Project

Participants
Will Lesieutre, Steve Ayer, and Craig Casey

Research Goal and Objectives
In a courtroom, it's important to consider the layout and lines between everyone participating in the proceedings. It's important for the judge(s), the jury, the lawers, and anyone else involved or watching to be able to see everything that happens. With the unusual shape and non-standard furniture that often characterize courtrooms, this can be hard to ensure with only a 2D plan. A 3d virtual mockup allows people to see the plans for a courtroom from a perspective much like being in it themselves, making it much easier to evaluate the design. This project is an investigation of the suitability of CubicSpace's rtre rendering plugin for the purposes of such architectural simulations.

Research Process
The first step in the research process was do perform basic tests of the rtre software and to develop a workflow that could be used to develop the courtroom model and use rtre to create a distributable executable of the model. We found that a Revit model could be exported to a DWG file, and from there be imported to 3d studio max and visualized in rtre. Next, we needed to apply this workflow to the Dickinson Law School. The entire building had previously been modeled using Revit, so we worked on a copy of that file with the non-courtroom portions removed. The Revit drawing was slightly outdated, so the wall, floor, and ceiling geometry was corrected before exporting it to AutoCAD. Once in AutoCAD, there was more detailed modeling to be done. This included the more complicated central ceiling, the furniture, the slate wall behind the judges' bench, and the paneling details on the walls. We later found that it was necessary to cut the walls off at the top and bottom so that they don't extend above the ceiling or below the floor, a step made necessary by oddities in rtre's lighting system. With this done, the model is ready to move to 3d studio max. Rtre 1.1 supports up to Max 7, so it is necessary to save a copy in the AutoCAD 2004 file format before it can be imported. 3D Studio Max is used for the final phase of modeling. In this step materials are applied to the model, lighting is calculated, and everything is passed to the rtre exporter for the creation of an executable. It's at this point that some of the limitations of rtre began to show up. When creating materials, it's important to know that only 4 types (blend, lightscape, multi/sub object, and standard) of materials are supported, and only 3 maps (diffuse, reflection, and opacity) are used. Aside from these restrictions, texturing for rtre is done in the same way that it would be in any other 3d studio model. The largest problems with rtre became apparent in the lighting step. Rtre has 3 lighting modes: diffuse, scene, and radiosity. Diffuse lighting displays objects as solid shapes of their diffuse color (or texture), without taking lighting into account. It's useless if you're trying to create a realistic model, but has its place when used with other shading and edge styles to produce looks like a pencil sketch. Scene lighting is the second best option. It uses the lights in your scene to shade objects and calculate basic shadows, but it doesn't include reflected light. For the most realistic results, radiosity should be used. This takes the radiosity calculations done by 3d studio and applies them to objects in the rtre view. Most importantly, it includes reflected light, which is why it was selected for the courtroom where the ceiling is only lit by light reflected back upward. It is not always an accurate reproduction of 3d studio's radiosity, and seems to lose detail in some cases, but it is still superior to scene lighting.

Research Results
Experimentation with IES web files and spotlights for the ceiling light was unable to produce the highlights and dark areas that would be expected with realistic lighting, so rtre may not be the best option when that's the desired goal. As a tool for showing off the shape of a building, rtre works well, but if more realism than that is desired, it would be best to look elsewhere. It also has a number of flaws, including random crashes and sometimes exporting executables without textures, that make it difficult to use. It may perform better with less complicated models.

Products Developed
[|Dickinson Mockup.zip]

Acknowledgments
We wish to thank Gilbane Building Company and Penn State Office of Physical Plant for their support on this project.